


What is Written

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Genre: Friendship/Love, M/M, Missing Scenes, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>English slumped only a little on his camel, with Gasim clinging to him, half-dead. As men approached, English sat straighter, his head held higher. He did not even glance down at the water Farraj held up to him. Ali thought--he liked to think--that the man’s eyes had already found him in the approaching crowd. And that English would not have taken water from a dozen men, because he was waiting for just one to offer it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is Written

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss winterhill (winterhill)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterhill/gifts).



> I'm aware of the issues with the film and its inaccuraces, and even the problems that have been discovered with Lawrence's written account (it's in question whether he even went to Deraa, let alone experienced what he claimed there). But despite its problems, I love the film and kept it as canon here.
> 
> Happy Holidays!

What should he care if an arrogant Westerner perished in the desert?

They had already come across the Nefud, with Aqaba ahead of them, waiting to be conquered. Without English to lead them, could they even convince the Howeitat to join them? It seemed unlikely, but so did surviving the Nefud, and they’d managed that. If the Howeitat _would_ join them, they could take Aqaba without a fool who would throw himself toward a horrible death and take every step with the intention of tempting God to strike him down.

Ali had heard the saying that God favored fools, but he wondered how many times God would do so for one fool in particular.

He sighed and dug his boot heel against the ground. Should he feel so grateful for the shade of his makeshift shelter when he knew another was trying to survive in scorching sunlight? His conscience convicted him, but it did little good. He could not go to help English now, this late into the day. He might as well slit his own throat and embrace a quick end as to beat himself to death against the Sun’s Anvil on a fool’s errand.

But he wished there were time. Time for him to try. The thought of taking Aqaba without English after it was his bold plot that put them in the position to do so . . . that felt like sacrilege.

Ali couldn’t even bear to keep watch for his return, as if he might actually make it back against all odds. Farraj and Daud, the worshippers they were, had taken up that task. Ali could not imagine staring at the line between the unending sand and the blue sky and tricking himself into thinking that sunspots in his eyes could be a camel limping from the desert, carrying the hope of Feisal’s miracle. He thought he would go mad if he tried.

Shouts rang through the dry air, and men left their resting spots near the water to see what had happened. A shiver ran through Ali at Farraj’s happy shouts of _Daud_. If Daud were returning alone, Farraj would not sound so triumphant.

Was it possible? Could it be that English had survived, not only one trip across the Nefud, but also a rescue mission that put him back on the hostile land that should have claimed him the first time? And how could it be that the thought made Ali’s heartbeat feel like horses thundering through his chest?

English slumped only a little on his camel, with Gasim clinging to him, half-dead. As men approached, English sat straighter, his head held higher. He did not even glance down at the water Farraj held up to him. Ali thought--he liked to think--that the man’s eyes had already found him in the approaching crowd. And that English would not have taken water from a dozen men, because he was waiting for just one to offer it.

English urged his camel forward, a desert conqueror coming home from the quest. He was as proud as a Harith, and proven worthy of the admiration that fell upon him as men gathered around him and raised their hands with welcoming cries of _Aurens_ , _Aurens._

 _Aurens_. _Yes_.

When Aurens’ eyes found Ali, they stayed on him. Ali smiled and offered his water like an apology, or a promise.

Aurens accepted the water, and the rest. “Nothing is written,” he said, his voice scratching its way out of a parched throat. And though Ali only smiled in return, his heart agreed. Feisal’s miracle--Aurens would write it. He had already, perhaps unbeknownst to Aurens himself, written himself as Ali’s.

Aurens should have been lifted from the camel and carried to a bedroll. But because he was Aurens, he walked unassisted, and told Farraj to wash his clothes. His stiff fingers struggled with the buttons of his uniform, but Ali did not try to help, not yet. It was not welcomed yet.

Once Aurens collapsed onto the bedroll, Ali turned him over and removed his clothing, then tossed them to Farraj and repeated the order to wash them. Farraj and Daud hovered around Aurens like impatient birds searching for a branch to alight on, but Ali told them to sit by the fire and leave him, leave them, in peace. Instead, Ali stayed by Aurens who still slept too heavily. Heavily enough for Ali to carefully wash his face and hands.

Ali covered him in blankets as the sun fell. Aurens ate little when he woke, because of their conversation, perhaps, or still exhaustion. Even with Aqaba laid out before him, after all he’d accomplished, talk of his father had been enough to shift something in him to despair. He would _settle_ for El Aurens, he said, in a way that sounded like both a rejection and an embrace.

Aurens slept a while longer, not knowing that his freshly washed clothes had been burned. He had become one of the Bedouin, and he would now wear their robes. To keep him in his English uniform would have felt to Ali like some sort of insult. But had he suggested the change, Aurens would have rejected and embraced it at once like his new name. Better to simply burn them and make the choice an inevitable one.

Farraj and Daud stayed by the fire rather than risk Ali’s irritation. Aurens would need them less now, because now he had Ali.

***

When Lawrence woke, memories came back to him out of order. First, he remembered getting off the camel, his fingers and legs aching in their new positions. They kept trying to cling again like he’d been doing for so long to keep from falling and suffering the same fate he meant to keep from Gasim. Then he heard Ali shouting after him as he headed back into the desert, the shouts of _English_ \--irritated at first, then enraged. Afraid, Lawrence thought.

Gasim had wept with gratitude when Lawrence found him, as much as any man could weep when he was too dry for tears. Even so, he’d told Lawrence they would not make it. The camel would succumb faster carrying two, and they would die shortly after it. Lawrence suspected much of his gratitude was simply because he thought he would not die alone.

“We will not die,” he’d promised. He had only just begun this life in Arabia, and had no intention of giving it up so soon. And if he died, his plans for Aqaba, for Damascus, would crumble. And then there was Ali.

He would not have Sherif Ali shake his head and say that English could not write his own future. He would not have the man gaze back into the Nefud and say _it was written_ with a look of disappointment on his face. No, that would not do at all.

As they headed toward the waiting water as fast as the overburdened camel could carry them, there were moments when Lawrence thought it might be easier just to slide down to the sand and not get up again. But he thought of Aqaba and all of Arabia and Ali and he stayed upright.

By the time Daud came racing toward him, he’d ceased thinking of Aqaba and Arabia, and found himself riding toward one man instead. When they returned and he found Ali’s happy face in the crowd, to look away from him long enough for the camel to lower itself was as hard as it had been to stay upright during the last hour of the ride. He found Ali again, and knew that he’d made the right choice in staying alive. That face should never be anything but triumphant and proud. The look Ali gave him slaked Lawrence’s thirst as much as the water Ali offered.

When he woke from an exhausted sleep, his face no longer felt plastered in desert dust. He felt his cheek with his fingertips and knew his hands were clean, as well. Ali sat close enough that Lawrence could have reached out and touched him with his foot. Ali would not have permitted Farraj and Daud to wash him, he was sure.

He ate a little, and they spoke of Lawrence’s father. Ali did not seem scandalized by the fact that Lawrence was a bastard, which was a surprise. Perhaps a man who could write his own future could escape the black mark of his unfortunate birth as easily in Ali’s eyes.

He’d gone back to sleep for a while, and awoken feeling a little better, though still tired. He rolled to face Ali, whom it seemed had not moved from his spot sitting near Lawrence’s feet.

“El Aurens.” Ali seemed eager to use his new name as often as possible.

“If I fall asleep again will you give me a manicure this time, and perhaps style my hair before I wake?”

Ali’s smile drooped. “Are you offended, Aurens? I only meant--”

“No, no.” Lawrence held up a hand and smiled. “I’m only joking. Thank you. I feel refreshed.”

Ali’s smile returned with a nod.

“Shall I get up?”

“No need. We will not move until closer to morning. You deserve to rest after what you did.”

“I did not do as much as people think.”

Ali turned his entire body so he sat facing Lawrence. “You told me that if fifty men came out of the Nefud, those would be fifty men other men might join. Now we have fifty men that came out of the desert and one who went back and came out again. You did not just survive, Aurens. You all but ensured will be more than fifty strong when we approach Aqaba.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“I do not understand.” Ali stood and threw a blanket down next to Lawrence’s. “You do something no one thinks is possible, you write it yourself, and then you act as if you did nothing. Perhaps you truly are as mad as I first thought.” He lay on the blanket on his side, and rolled another small one to serve as a pillow. He rested his head there and looked at Lawrence, his brow furrowed.

“Perhaps.” Lawrence didn’t blink.

“Perhaps you keep agreeing with me because you do not know what else to say.”

Lawrence laughed. “My dear, Ali, I think you’ll find that I am rarely at a loss for words. I simply choose them carefully.”

“Good. Then at least one of us will not be mute. I find myself at a loss, at times.” Ali licked his lips and chewed the bottom one briefly. “You can fill the silence when I feel my words are inadequate.”

Lawrence shook his head. “I choose my words carefully, but I often keep a fair bit of them to myself in the end.”

Ali shifted toward Lawrence on his blanket, moving closer. “Some are perhaps better thought than spoken,” he whispered.

Lawrence regarded Ali for a long moment, and then lifted his head to look at the empty line that had been strung up earlier. “Where are my clothes?”

***

As Ali and Aurens climbed the outcrop so they could look at Aqaba as it slept, they talked of what would come, of how the attack would take place, what they would do once they were victorious. Aurens had convinced Auda to join them in taking Aqaba, though it had not been easy.

“Auda said your mother mated with a scorpion, but that is not true.”

“No? Why ever do you say that?”

“It was a spider. Because you wove your words around Auda like a web until there was no escape for him. Definitely a spider.”

Aurens put his hand on his chest and smiled. “Perhaps a spider with a scorpion’s tail?”

“That seems possible.”

Ali felt like a king, standing next to Aurens, surveying the kingdom they would vanquish the next day.

And then Gasim had killed one of the Howeitat, and Aurens had carried out the sentence of death on the man he’d risked his life to save. For the first time Ali wanted to strike a man, Auda, for saying _it was written,_ though he himself would have said the same a short time ago.

Aurens had pulled Ali’s gun from his belt and used it to kill Gasim, so this was another thing they shared. Then Aurens had thrown it away, as if it was now not fit for either of them to wield again. Ali did not try to retrieve it from the group of brigands that scrambled for it.

He took Aurens away from the group again, though this time not to survey their coming conquest.

“Perhaps Gasim served as your test. That you could pull the trigger means that you will not falter in battle. It is harder to kill a man you know than one you do not.”

Aurens shook his head and regarded Ali with raised eyebrows. “Ali, I find . . . it is not hard to kill. It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

“You do not appear as if you’ve just done something easy.” He put his hand on Aurens’ shoulder. “Which should I believe in, Aurens? The words you choose carefully and hide away before they spring from your throat, or your eyes, which say things you cannot conceal.”

“You’re imagining things. Perhaps the desert heat has finally gotten to you.”

Ali held a finger up. “Those were carefully chosen words, designed to set me on a different path. The ones you swallow and do not speak,” he said, touching Aurens’ cheek below his eye, “are shouted here.”

Aurens looked the same as he had when he’d been discussing his father, but wrestled control of his features and merely nodded. Ali’s fingers stayed on Aurens’ cheek for a long time, then he sat heavily. With their shoulders pressed together, Ali lifted Aurens’ hand and squeezed it between both of his, then rubbed his thumb over the palm in circle after circle.

“You are still writing it,” he stressed, just as he had moments after Gasim was dead.

***

Lawrence didn’t know why Ali had rubbed his hand. Perhaps to erase the memory of the gun it had held. He’d closed his eyes after a time, and both of them had ended up dozing lightly for a while. Ali roused him later, and they went back to camp to rest before their attack.

When night had fallen, Aqaba long since fallen to them through the day, Lawrence went to the sea. He went to bask, he supposed, in the victory, in the acceptance, in the salt air and the breeze. He thought about his father, _a kind of lord_ , Ali had called him, and realized that Sir Thomas Chapman was not worthy to be his father. Perhaps he was born of no man. Spiders and scorpions and sand. That would do.

Ali appeared behind him, as he so often did--silently, watching Lawrence for several minutes before Lawrence knew he was there. He had never felt so keenly observed as he did when Ali looked at him. Ali threw flowers down for Lawrence.

He should have felt foolish jumping through the water for the flower garland, but he didn’t. Having it in his hand seemed the most important thing at the moment. He was about to walk up to Ali where he sat on his camel and offer it back to him, a tribute for the prince, flowers for the man, as Ali had told him. But noises drew them away from the sea to find Auda and his men had destroyed the telegraph and their hope of contacting Allenby about their triumph.

He would have to go to Cairo and tell him they’d taken Aqaba in person.

While Ali was concerned about Lawrence crossing the Sinai peninsula to reach Allenby, he was at least as worried about something else. About Lawrence removing the keffiyeh as if it were an affectation, a costume that he would remove when around other English. As if he would do so, and act as if he merely tolerated Arabs and was not one of them himself.

“You are an ignorant man,” he told Ali, and went to prepare for the journey, tasking Daud and Farraj with gathering water and supplies. He could not leave for Cairo with things as they were with Ali, however. He found him later, and grabbed his clothing at his chest the way he had when explaining why he was the one who had to go.

“Do you think I would forsake you so easily?” He shook Ali as he spoke.

“Forsake me? Or the men you have led here? Or Arabia?”

“All of those things.”

Ali put his hand over Lawrence’s where it pressed against his chest. “Not unless you write it to be so.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Why does an Englishman come to Arabia and do what could not be done? Why does he come here and wear the keffiyeh as if he were born to it. You said earlier you love this country. Well, it suits you. The sand and the sea--you fit, Aurens. As long as you wish it, at least.”

Lawrence stepped closer. “And you fear that among other Englishmen, I will stop wishing to _fit_ here.”

Ali pulled Lawrence forward and pressed their lips together in a chaste kiss that didn’t feel chaste to Lawrence, the gesture as much a promise or a tribute as any water pouch or garland. “I fear they will drive the wish from you, whether you want that or not.”

“Ali . . . I am still writing it. You said so.” He cupped Ali’s cheek with his hand. “And I will not erase what I’ve already written.”

There was Auda to deal with, things Lawrence needed to do to be ready to leave, but he embraced Ali and pressed his cheek against the man’s neck. “I’ve written you, beside me. When I come back from Cairo, you’ll see.”

***

Aurens returned from Cairo and General Allenby with heavy shoulders, and one less servant boy. But he still had purpose, and he had not worn trousers even while briefing his superiors. He had claimed this would be so, and claimed it had been, and Ali believed him.

Aurens led the men, drawing the attention of not just Cairo but Syria and the world. And Ali stayed by his side, where Aurens had written him. He stayed even when the others began to doubt, when they realized Aurens’ imperfections, and grew tired of failures.

Ali watched Aurens wash his clothing and hang them, now that Daud and Farraj could no longer do so. Aurens had washed his face before, and then his hands, all while Ali sat silent because he knew Aurens wished it. Finally, he asked if he could speak now, tired of the silence.

He said what had to be said, but he made sure Aurens knew he would not be one of those lost to him no matter how many failures there were. He was where he was meant to be. But to ask the others to perform miracles for him . . . .

“Do you think I’m just anybody, Ali? Do you?”

 _No, you are Aurens. My miracle_. But before he could speak, Aurens had dashed outside to ask who would walk on water with him by accompanying him to Deraa. None would. He would go alone.

Ali followed him back inside and took his arm, turning him. “I will go with you to Deraa. Even though it is madness.” He motioned for Aurens to sit, and he wet a cloth.

“Ali, you said it was madness to try to cross the Nefud.”

“It was. That we survived does not change the fact.” He knelt next to Aurens and gently wiped his forehead, a line down his nose.

“Then we are all madmen. For whom else could prevail on a mad quest than men just as insane as the idea?”

Ali wiped Aurens’ chin and the apples of his cheeks. “Perhaps.”

“Now it is you who swallows down some of the words you want to say.”

Ali rinsed and wrung the cloth, then wiped Aurens’ neck. “Some of the words . . . I have been doing that all along, Aurens.”

***

Ali was right. He tested the men’s loyalty every day, and the only one who would end up beside him if he did not change his tactics would be Ali. Pride, vanity . . . a feeling of weightlessness and immortality, those would not let him admit it. Even when none of them would go with him to Deraa.

None of them but Ali.

Lawrence looked into Ali’s eyes as Ali washed his face, long fingers touching him here and there though he used a cloth. Ali only glanced at him between swipes of the cloth across his skin. Lawrence supposed it had been madness to try to cross the Nefud, but madness had turned to strength and determination on the journey and that had been the difference between trying and succeeding

Lawrence did not know if he could bear to hear the words Ali admitted he had not yet said, and he did not know if he could bear to go another second without hearing them. The paradox was one of many he struggled with since coming here. Perhaps it was a matter of waiting until they had Damascus in their grip, and any words could be uttered without fear of what might come after. With less fear, at least.

 _I was not going to come back from Cairo_ , he wanted to admit to Ali. _I tried not to come back_. Part of Lawrence longed to tell him he had been right, and even though he had not removed the keffiyeh and changed into trousers, being there away from the heat and blood of the revolt had made him want to avoid it. Gasim and Daud, that had been enough deaths at his hands, or because of his command. Enough of killing people he knew. He was done. Being in the peace of Cairo made him want to avoid what the heat and blood and guilt were doing to him.

But he had come back, and before him knelt much of the reason. He would tell Ali so, perhaps after Deraa. After one more victory he could wave in front of him, proving he was not just any man once again.

When Ali was done, Lawrence’s face felt as if it had just woken from numbness, the tingling spreading everywhere he had touched. They shared a long look before Ali wiped Aurens’ cheek again, his fingertips trailing behind the cloth to the corner of Aurens’ mouth.

“Was my face dirty, Ali?”

Ali shook his head, and whispered, “No.”

Lawrence took the cloth from his hand and tossed it aside, pulling Ali to him so they could lie facing one another. “Deraa, Ali. We will walk on water there. You’ll see.”

“I will walk on water or walk through fire. Whichever you wish, Aurens. As long as you write it for us.” He pressed Lawrence’s hand to his face.

“I will write it, Ali.” He touched his forehead to Ali’s. “Here.” Lawrence took Ali’s hand and brought it first to his lips, then to press against his own chest, over his heart. “In here, it is already written.”


End file.
